Ideas to brighten up my small garden (on a budget)

[Coffeegirl75]

Please help… I have a small garden, it has a raised bed along the back wall and along both sides but only halfway.

Looking for ideas for shrubs (easy to maintain) and flowers.

My kids are already planning to plant peas, carrots, tomatoes this year and thinking about blueberry plant and strawberries.

I’ve a wooden fence that’s seen better days, I’m thinking to paint a bright colour just to liven up the garden. Does that sound naff?
Then thinking of painting the bench that’s also seen better days too.

Me and the kids will probably spend more time outside this summer when not at the parks. So hoping to get couple of kids bits; water table/sand box.

But just thinking what to plant to make the area look and smell lovely. I’m thinking of some lavender but open to ideas.

Thank you, I don’t have green fingers but I’m very keen to learn!

Fuschias are easy and pretty
Sweet peas smell gorgeous
I do like lavender and some herbs - rosemary and thyme are good.

Trailing lobelia can be lovely falling over the edge of a raised bed.

How old are the dc? Nasturtiums are cheap from seed and will give free seed for next year. Pretty and edible.

Hebe shrubs are easy to maintain, I like the jewel ones as are azaleas that come in different colours.

Camelias are pretty and the ones which grow fairly straight rather than really bushy don't take up a lot of space.

If you’ve got a garden centre nearby go and look to see if it’s got a sad plant area. Often the plants are ones that just need TLC and are very much reduced. Wilco’s ( if you have one) are great shops for cheap plants and pots.
Summer fairs and fetes often have plant stalls.

Camellia sounds like a good idea as they're evergreen but I thought they need ericaceous (sp?) soil. I'm no expert so it could just be that they do better but don't necessarily need it.

Daphne smells lovely, my neighbour has a row of them at the front of her house that flower for months.

Aquilegia! Plant it once and it self seeds everywhere.
This year I’ve gone a little bit mad for dahlias. I have 8 tubers ordered and started some seeds today too. So that’s my main flowerbed sorted.
Other than that, I grow strawberries, peas and runner beans in another bed, tomatoes, cucumber and annual herbs/salad in the greenhouse. We have raspberry canes, they are very easy if you get an autumn fruiting variety.

Daphne looks good but poisonous, so take care. Some lettuces and cabbages look spectacular. You can eat them but if you are too busy they look better gone to seed.

Do you have a lot of sun? If you do, salvias would be great - long flowering season, lots of colour, easy as anything. Amistad flowers all summer through the November, as does Cerise Potosi, Hot Lips flowers for ages too (as do all the salvias in the Lips series). All will come again next year.

They are sages, so they are fragrant (I love the scent, but some don’t).

Cosmos are flowers grown for cutting that can be grown very cheaply from seed. Cornflowers/nigella the same. One season.

The children might like to grow candytuft from seed, it grows pretty quickly after sowing.

I would grow strawberries in hanging baskets on the fence

The wooden fence - when you say it has seen better days, what do you mean? Is it falling down, or does it look like it needs a good clean, or what? Ours is streaked with green, so I am going to give it a scrub this year. Maybe with some very very watered down bleach in a spray to start off with and see whether that is enough. If it isn’t I will get the scrubbing brush out.

Clematis on a trellis up a wall.

Geraniums are pretty reliable. Get the largest plants you can afford, otherwise you’ll spend ages waiting for them to flower (learnt from painful experience watching my neighbours garden a lot earlier than mine!).

Fuchsias - I agree, easy and pretty.

Maybe get each child a new container each, and let them choose some beddings plants to fill them.

Sunflowers - have a ‘who can grow the tallest sunflower competition’?’ competition. Maybe share the seeds with family and friends so they can join in.

I have just spent the weekend doing a bit of shopping/prepping my own small garden

Main thing to say : Morrisons has AMAZING prices for plants, so if you have one with a garden section nearby I’d go & see what they have

I think seeing what Morrisons/B&M/Wilco have that you like is much cheaper than going looking for specific plants tbh. The labels will tell you how big they are/if for sun & shade

My best buys : sweet peas from b&m (little pot with 5 plants £1) - which are fragrant, a plum tree from Morrisons for £10 (I will grow about 5 foot tall so not massive), clematis for a couple of pounds…

I would paint the fence, put plant netting on it (lighter & cheaper than trellis) & grow plants up it - peas /sweet peas/clematis/Passion flower etc

B&M has really good prices for planters, ASDA is also great value for plastic pots/troughs

Strawberries (in a gro bag perhaps?) would work well & give you runners for next year. I managed to get a couple of blueberry bushes from Morrisons for £5.50 each (it’s good to get more than 1 variety)

Lettuce/spinach/chard are also good : easy to grow (from seeds) and will cope with some shade - I’m hoping these will save me some money at the supermarket

Have some mirrors strategically placed to reflect the sun and plants

Lidl always seem to do very reasonably priced lavender plants. I have managed to pick up a fair number of lovely pots by "street shopping". This time of year many people upgrade or change their gardens and leave the old pots on the pavement or in skips for people pick up.

Erysimum (perennial wallflower) are easy to keep, most varieties smell gorgeous, and they keep flowering all summer. Bees love them and they come in some lovely colours too. ‘Bowles mauve’ is very popular but they aren’t really scented so try and pick one up that’s flowering so you can give it a sniff.

Not sure what is the age of your children but bean teepee or sunflower teepee is good fun.

www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/children/childrens-bean-teepee.htm

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Thanks for all the suggestions, I will look into these.

My children are 4 years and 2 years old, and keen to help.
The fence is not broken, it’s just not had any varnish or paint, so I’d say quite weather beaten. I’m thinking a bright colour of paint would be nicer to look at than a shabby fence.

I’m really looking to getting the garden sorted now I have some ideas, thank you for all your input!

A friend painted her garden fence and furniture in blue and white for a beach effect. Got the kids to paint some pots red. It looked lovely.

Last year I cleared a bit of grass to bare earth and just threw down annual flower seeds - calendula, nigella, poppies, cornflower. Looked amazing. This year I'm planting up that space permanently with lavendar and phlox. YOu could sow some sunflower seeds with the kids too. .

What also works really nicely for garden fences is black paint cause it really makes the foliage pop. Otherwise a yellow or bright colour can look really charming!

Depends if you want to be sewing seeds every year or just planting just the once (or a bit of both).
Some good annuals to do with kids would be to do a sweet pea teepee - like the image above. As long as your children aren’t scared of bees!! And sun flower growing comp is great too. You can also get mixed wildflowers than you can rake into any exposed soil areas if you’d like. V low maintenance.

Then pick some perennials you like and either start from seed (if strict budget) or plant in and these will come back for you every year with a little bit of cutting back at the end of the season.

As the seasons change you may wish to plant some bulbs with the kids such as daffs/crocus etc which will neutralise and each year you’ll get more come up.

Which direction does your garden face? How much sun do the raised borders get? How wide are the borders from the back to the front? How high? These factors will impact on which shrubs, plants and flowers you can grow successfully...